James Fienup

James Ray Fienup is an American optical scientist. He is the Robert E. Hopkins Professor of Optics at the Institute of Optics at the University of Rochester, where he researches imaging science. Fienup was the editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Optical Society of America from 1998 to 2003.

Early life and education
Fienup was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He attended the College of the Holy Cross, where he graduated in 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.), magna cum laude, in physics and mathematics. Fienup then pursued graduate studies at Stanford University as a fellow for the National Science Foundation. He obtained a Master of Science (M.S.) from Stanford in applied physics in 1972 then a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in the field in 1975. His dissertation was titled "Improved synthesis and computational methods for computer-generated holograms" and was supervised by Joseph W. Goodman.

Career
After serving as a research assistant at the Stanford Electronics Laboratories, Fienup became a senior scientist at the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan in July 1975. He remained there until June 2002, when he assumed a position at the University of Rochester as its Robert E. Hopkins Professor of Optics.

Fienup is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.